Experts on e-learning: insights gained from listening to the student voice!

The Student Experience of e-Learning Laboratory (SEEL) project at the University of Greenwich was designed to explore and then implement a number of approaches to investigate learners’ experiences of using technology to support their learning. In this paper members of the SEEL team present initial findings from a University-wide survey of nearly a 1000 students. A selection of 90 ‘cameos’, drawn from the survey data, offer further insights into personal perceptions of e-learning and illustrate the diversity of students experiences. The cameos provide a more coherent picture of individual student experience based on the totality of each person’s responses to the questionnaire. Finally, extracts from follow-up case studies, based on interviews with a small number of students, allow us to ‘hear’ the student voice more clearly. Issues arising from an analysis of the data include student preferences for communication and social networking tools, views on the ‘smartness’ of their tutors’ uses of technology and perceptions of the value of e-learning. A primary finding and the focus of this paper, is that students effectively arrive at their own individualised selection, configuration and use of technologies and software that meets their perceived needs. This ‘personalisation’ does not imply that such configurations are the most efficient, nor does it automatically suggest that effective learning is occurring. SEEL reminds us that learners are individuals, who approach learning both with and without technology in their own distinctive ways. Hearing, understanding and responding to the student voice is fundamental in maximising learning effectiveness. Institutions should consider actively developing the capacity of academic staff to advise students on the usefulness of particular online tools and resources in support of learning and consider the potential benefits of building on what students already use in their everyday lives. Given the widespread perception that students tend to be ‘digital natives’ and academic staff ‘digital immigrants’ (Prensky, 2001), this could represent a considerable cultural challenge

From corporeality to virtual reality: theorizing literacy, bodies, and technology in the emerging media of virtual, augmented, and mixed realities

This dissertation explores the relationships between literacy, technology, and bodies in the emerging media of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). In response to the recent, rapid emergence of new media forms, questions arise as to how and why we should prepare to compose in new digital media. To interrogate the newness accorded to new media composing, I historicize the literacy practices demanded by new media by examining digital texts, such as video games and software applications, alongside analogous “antiquated” media, such as dioramas and museum exhibits. Comparative textual analysis of analogous digital and non-digital VR, AR, and MR texts reveals new media and “antiquated” media utilize common characteristics of dimensionality, layering, and absence/presence, respectively. The establishment of shared traits demonstrates how media operate on a continuum of mutually held textual practices; despite their distinctive forms, new media texts do not represent either a hierarchical or linear progression of maturing development. Such an understanding aids composing in new VR, AR, and MR media by enabling composers to make fuller use of prior knowledge in a rapidly evolving new media environment, a finding significant both for educators and communicators. As these technologies mature, we will continue to compose both traditional and new forms of texts. As such, we need literacy theory that attends to both the traditional and the new and also is comprehensive enough to encompass future acts of composing in media yet to emerge

‘These gymnasts do not simply perform gymnastics’ - an analysis of visual representations of the gymnastic body

The shape of the Olympic discipline of Artistic Gymnastics is a legacy distilled from a wealth of gymnastic forms of movement, practiced against military, didactic, medicinal, political, dance and aesthetic objectives. Gymnastics is a form of movement for which no complete, global history exists. It has largely been neglected by research in the arts and humanities, with sports history largely contributing studies of specific gymnastic leaders, or regional or national practices. The majority of existing research derives from sports science, focusing on biomechanics, issues of bodily development, nutrition, eating disorders, and sports psychology. This thesis seeks to add to the modest existing literature a visual analysis of the manner in which the gymnastics body has been represented, tracing the genealogy of these representations back to the re-invention of gymnastics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Specific areas of analysis cover the whiteness of gymnastics; the relation of this whiteness to the reverence for classical imagery and the statuesque; gender; posing; performativity; movement notation; the tension between stillness and movement; the various clothing worn for gymnastics; and ways of watching and capturing gymnastics. This thesis takes a thematic methodology, consulting a range of interdisciplinary resources and literature, and stems out of my own childhood experience of competitive gymnastics. A range of archives have been consulted, as well as items from the sport’s visual culture: from gymnastics magazines; posters; and advertisements; to competition coverage; commentary; fan montages; leotards; badges; coaching manuals; teaching aids; and films. A practice-based thesis, specific lines of enquiry from the thesis have been explored in exhibition texts and curated public programming, with a particular focus on film, artist moving image, and exhibiting items of dress designed for the body in motion

The art and architecture of mathematics education: a study in metaphors

This chapter presents the summary of a talk given at the Eighth European Summer University, held in Oslo in 2018. It attempts to show how art, literature, and history, can paint images of mathematics that are not only useful but relevant to learners as they can support their personal development as well as their appreciation of mathematics as a discipline. To achieve this goal, several metaphors about and of mathematics are explored

The Level Game: Architectures of Play in American Fiction and Theory, 1968–2018

This thesis investigates the theme of ‘levels’ in postmodern and contemporary American fiction, as manifested through levels of reality, levels of architecture and levels in games. Postmodern fiction engages levels in the ontological sense, employing literary devices such as reflexivity and narrative embedding in order to interrogate the nature of fictional worlds. In the later stages of postmodernism, approaching the millennium, technological developments contribute to a terminology of levels in video games. Here, levels come to be associated with goal-oriented hierarchies, and are adopted by the corporate world as motivating tools. Throughout these examples, the navigation of levels is associated with play, and I conceptualise the spatiality of levels through the phrase ‘architectures of play’. This applies both abstractly (architectures of narrative) and concretely (architectures in narrative). My introduction defines the concept of levels, detailing their role in my period of study. Chapter one discusses the work of Jean Baudrillard, interrogating the relationship between play and ontology through his remark that ‘reality has passed completely into the game of reality’. Chapter two analyses John Barth’s ‘Lost in the Funhouse’, where I suggest that the spatial navigation of architectural levels in physical funhouses corresponds with the conceptual navigation of narrative levels in this text. Comparing Barth’s story with David Foster Wallace’s ‘Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way’, I illustrate how Wallace uses the same literary materials as Barth but experiments with their arrangement. This is exemplified by Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which my next chapter examines in relation to the mise en abyme and the play within the play. I conclude by suggesting that the physical traversal demanded by the novel is a means of restoring the boundaries of play to the infinite jest. Chapter four further probes the physicality of texts, studying the material levels of two formally experimental works: Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes. Chapter five contrastingly explores the thematisation of digitality in fiction, where levels are used in a teleological sense to denote progress in video games and commercial gamification strategies. Chapter six elaborates on the theme of technology by discussing levels in relation to networks, comparing Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997) with Richard Powers’s The Overstory (2018). Both novels depict worlds structured as networks, but I draw attention to the prepositions of their titles, arguing that one must travel through levels in order to realise the network’s connections. Exploring the ludic capacity of levels, my study asks: what do levels do? How do we play with levels – architecturally, digitally, and narratively? How do these different media interact in postmodern and contemporary fiction? Through the above six case studies, I delineate the effects – and affects – associated with the figure of the level, identifying a pervasive ‘level game’ in postmodern and contemporary literature and culture.English Faculty Centenary Awar

Fitness of Play: A Prototype for a Holistic Activity Space at Toronto’s Riverdale Park

The value of personal well-being and execution of fitness varies between individuals as the constant transformation of societal ideologies around fitness continually impact the macro perception. This in turn leaves the notion of fitness to lack stability and security. With the influence of visually stimulating exchanges through virtual interactions in the contemporary world, the body becomes a means of public expression and social identity that places a priority on certain physical and aesthetic conditions of the human body, rather than their degree of health, uniqueness and ability. With such backdrop, the contemporary notion of fitness that encapsulates ideas around a socially constructed ‘ideal’ becomes the motivational drive of physical exercise for many. The body-obsessive fitness facilities catered towards a group at large reinforces these socially constructed values as it becomes the location for the production of the ill-defined ‘ideal’ bodies. The excessive mechanical rigidity and spatial linearity of the fitness floor plans generates a mechanical notion of strength and power; gym equipment and machines that limit the amount of self-induced movements produce robotic and mindless movements; all of which emanate an intimidating and isolating milieu that dismisses the importance of emotional well-being, playful social interactions and a synergy of the mind and body. The first portion of this thesis examines the fluid nature of fitness culture and the effect of technology and media on promulgating ideas around fitness, as well as its subsequent impact on the socio-spatial realm of fitness facilities and its users. The second portion of this thesis explores the values and elements of play while referring to various built precedents that physically and psychologically constitutes a playful environment in favour of reimagining the relationship between exercise and play. Finally, the third portion of this thesis introduces a speculative proposal located at Toronto’s Riverdale Park which redefines the contemporary act of exercise by providing an all-inclusive play-scape rather than imposing rigid exercises found at a gym. The proposed environment utilizes notions of play to penetrate an individual’s preconceived notions of fitness to provoke changes in understanding what it means to be healthy and fit, and reclaim the connection of the mind and body, to nature, to play, and to others

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills